Scores of people would still remember with certain commotion that charming and humble smile joyfully accompanied with that captivating Franciscan greeting “Peace and Good to Everybody”! with which he used to start and end his TV programmes on RAI. Padre Mariano of Turin (1906-1972), the Capuchin TV apostle, undoubtedly left a lasting impact on his large TV audiences. His three TV programmes, La Posta di Padre Mariano, In Famiglia and Chi è Gesù? manifested his ardent love for souls. As he wrote in 1937, “life is being an apostle, only he who gives, really lives. We are all in some way responsible for the souls which providence places in our paths”.
Since he was a young teacher of classical literature at Pinerolo High School, at the age of 24, responsibility for souls had always been Paolo Roasenda’s constant concern. In a moving letter to his aunt Constanza, young Paolo wrote: “What will I be? I know nothing today, but the Lord sees this: that I strongly want to dedicate all my life (as He will like and where He will like) for the good of souls. I think it is necessary not to hesitate: it is the nicest life, the most consoling and noblest one, and you can put it into practice in any state”. Led by Mary’s maternal loving care, the 34-year-old professor Paolo Roasenda became Fra Mariano from Turin, a Capuchin novice at the Convent of Fiuggi (Frosinone). Abiding by the Capuchins’ custom he chose his new name, Mariano, “to honour She to whom I owe so much. I reflect with great joy how every time someone says my poor name, in some way it recalls to Her”.
Padre Mariano’s hospital ministry at the Roman hospitals of Santa Maria della Pietà, Santo Spirito in Sassia and Regina Coeli prison endowed him with extraordinary empathic skills which he humbly and radiantly employed through his TV ministry. In 1969, when answering a question on the magazine Radiocorriere TV, Padre Mariano shared his precious insights on his new way of preaching the Gospel. “The first charity to be used is to put oneself on the side of the listeners and make easy what by its nature is difficult to understand” (the mind); then to ‘hear’ by the heart, that means that the one who speaks must be the first one to put into practice what he tells or recommends the others”. And finally, taking St Francis’ advice, Padre Mariano kept repeating to his brother priests: “Be short!”
In order for him “to be heard by the ear, the mind, and the heart” Padre Mariano refrained from looking at himself as a preacher. He opted instead of considering himself as a talker of Jesus Christ.
“Why, above all, are there so few homilies on the adorable person that is Jesus? Christianity isn’t so much a doctrine (although it is the highest, as it is divine) as a person: the essence of Christianity is the person Jesus Christ. Preaching lacks the ‘essentials’, it isn’t very ‘Christian’ because Jesus as a person isn’t talked about. It is necessary to ‘talk’, not ‘preach’. I believe that Jesus spoke in a gentle way instead of preaching in a loud and ineffective voice frequently used by too many ministers of God”.
Prayer made Padre Mariano an excellent empathic listener and talker of Jesus and his mystical body, the Church. “Sometimes priests don’t really ‘understand’ today’s world. There lacks a real understanding, a warm intimacy, between he the apostle and mankind today. This is something which doesn’t come from magazines or weekly journals but from fervent prayer and personal closeness to God… Three years of being a hospital chaplain offered me – at a mature age – more experience than all the books on moral issues… I think that every priest responsible for souls should systematically dedicate a certain amount of uninterrupted time each day to visiting the faithful, instead of spending their time in the parish office”.
The Capuchin Padre Mariano from Turin, hopefully the first and much awaited TV saint, drove home a fundamental point through his untiring evangelising activity: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (§ 41). Mother Church, through Pope Paul VI, proved Padre Mariano right by issuing and affirming his view in her apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi.